Blogspotting: A Day in the Life of an Ambulance Driver

This blog is a remarkably clear-eyed, gracious, and courageous look at the very end of ordinary human lives from the viewpoint of the men who come to pick up the pieces.

When I read an extract from this blog on The Belmont Club, my eyes grew misty and I thought intellectually about the end of life and what it means. When I clicked through and read the whole entry I teared up, then wept, then sobbed. And then I laughed, but not in relief. It didn’t let up. The cycle continued. What I did may be cliched, but it is not false. That is what amazingly talented storytellers and writers do with their words when they tell the right story. The characters in these autobiographical short-short-stories have first names, or they have titles like Pardner, Part-Time Temporary Partner, Trooper, and the girl with the prom dress. But they are no less real, no less true, for that. The writer, who calls himself Ambulance Driver, is so technically proficient, his style so natural and unaffected, and he is so sure of his subject matter that the reader is immediately drawn into the stories, even the short ones. He is ready to be widely published in hardback and I expect his books to be best-sellers.

Read the comments. The Ambulance Driver’s stories are so good, so powerful, that the comments draw personal stories out of readers of his site of the ends of other lives, their relatives, friends, some strangers. Some of the comments are as powerful and affecting as the stories they respond to.

I added him to my blogroll under Moral Clarity. I expect many others will add him to theirs as well.